Artist and former NSCAD student Natasha Hope-Simpson gives the keynote address at the Seaport Maker Symposium, where her new 3D printed prosthetic leg was unveiled in Halifax. (ADRIEN VECZAN / Staff)

One night last November, Natasha Hope-Simpson’s life changed radically.

The young artist was struck by a vehicle in Wolfville while she was walking to her parked car. The hit-and-run crash ended up costing Hope-Simpson part of her left leg.

Almost five months later, the NSCAD University graduate showed a Halifax audience the prototype of an innovative prosthetic limb she helped other Nova Scotians design using 3D printing technology.

Hope-Simpson said the crash presented her with “a huge artistic challenge.” That is, how best to fill the space below her knee down to the ground with “something beautiful.”

Her requirements were functionality and esthetics, Hope-Simpson told a NSCAD symposium Friday at the Pier 21 immigration museum.

“For me, my biggest need is mobility,” she said. “I’d like to be able to walk and hike and bike and … (do) all of the things that I like to do, and more. I want to be able to do what hasn’t happened yet.”

After she was hurt in the hit and run, Hope-Simpson endured a long hospital stay and eight surgeries. Doctors told her they could try to save her leg but it would take many operations and she would never walk normally again, CBC News reported last year.

She was 23 years old at the time of the crash.

“I decided to go with the amputation because I value functionality a lot,” Hope-Simpson told CBC. “I want to be able to move, to walk, to travel. It was a relief to have it off because it was so mangled.”

At Pier 21, Hope-Simpson said her desire for an artificial leg goes beyond pure utilitarian need.

“What I want is something that’s beautiful and that speaks the language of the rest of my body,” she said. “I’d like it to give back balance to my form, and it should have a sense of femininity — it should feel like it’s a part of me.”

After her accident, first-year students in a NSCAD class listened to Hope-Simpson’s wish list for a better prosthesis, said a release from the university. She also wanted a new leg that could get wet and work well in water during such activities as swimming and surfing.

Students at NSCAD worked in small groups, developing ideas and using materials like cardboard, bungee cords, wire and Styrofoam to create 3D prototypes. “Then Natasha got to try out what they made and provide feedback,” the school’s release said.

As well, Hope-Simpson consulted with Thinking Robot Studios Inc. of Truro, whose designers worked with an engineer in Bulgaria. In about four weeks’ time, the custom-made prototype was produced.

Using computer modelling and 3D printing, an artificial body part with an artistic pattern was developed that included Hope-Simpson’s design notions.

“I’ll never forget her face (Thursday) when she held it in her hands for the first time, and smiled — and I got a picture of that smile,” Kendall Joudrie, of Thinking Robot Studios, told the conference.

“That was the most amazing moment any of us could ever have asked for.”